Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely. We all know the story - "Send your bank account details and we will send you the money."

Item No. 243C is correspondence received from an individual which follows previous correspondence on Caranua and refers to the matters raised by the Comptroller and Auditor General. It is separate correspondence which we will include in the conversation we just had. We will note it.

The next item is No. 244C, correspondence received from an individual with further information on the payment of an Aosdána grant. The correspondent takes issue with a number of things, including the committee forwarding his letter to Aosdána and use of his e-mail address, and refers to the committee's obligation in criminal matters and the discourtesy it has shown to him. The clerk has drafted a reply to the letter addressing the issues raised, a copy of which is on members' screens. I ask them to take a moment to read it. If it is agreed, the clerk can issue it on our behalf. The person in question sent us an e-mail, but he does not want us to respond to him by e-mail but to write letters to him. We forwarded a copy of his e-mail, as we would normally do, to Aosdána for a response, but he is not happy that we sent his details to it. Separately, he is unhappy that I, as Chairman, did not personally write back to him, but as pointed out in the letter, once correspondence is received, it becomes committee documentation and the response is sent by the clerk. Can we agree to issue the letter drafted by the clerk? Agreed. I hope I have not shown any discourtesy to the correspondent in my summarising of the letter.

The next item is No. 247C, a letter received from TASC, Think-tank for Action on Social Change, enclosing a policy paper which proposes the reform of practices in Government and public bodies. I thank the organisation for its paper which certainly raises some important issues that need to be addressed, particularly in the area of record keeping by public sector organisations. It arose from the fact that NAMA had not retained its contemporaneous notes on board decisions. TASC has a view on the matter and thinks there should be greater record keeping and transparency. I suggest we note the letter and take it on board. Members can read it and use the documentation. It is interesting correspondence. We thank TASC for sending it to us and we will take it into account.

The next item is No. 250C, correspondence received from Mr. Philip Lane, Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, in reply to correspondence received by the committee on alleged breaches of prudential requirements by significant financial institutions. The letter states such breaches have to be dealt with by the European Central Bank as the Central Bank can forward such allegations to it. The correspondence does not state if the Central Bank has actually sent the complaint to the ECB. I propose that we write to the Central Bank asking if the allegations have been forwarded to the ECB and, if not, to request that the information be referred as quickly as possible. If it has not been so referred, we should ask why it has not done so.